Upgrading my BS Affinity Squire Tele???

From stu mac I ordered a 7K Golden Age pickup, tele wiring kit and a shielding kit. The guitar plays fine but has some hum. I like the bridge pickup but the neck is weak--hince the intended upgrade.

I copied the stu mac wiring diagram and it seems to be somewhat different for wiring the switch than what I find on the net as standard tele wiring. All the different wiring diagrams has got me a little confused.

1-I just want standard tele wiring with the .05 cap and don't want the .01 treble bleed cap installed. Which wiring diagram should I go by???

2-I see they have ceramic type caps in the kit. Would I be better off using a Mallory 150 or something similar?

Please clue me in on best wiring for standard tele operation and I'm open to any suggestions as I try to get these budget tele humming like a pro.

Attached is the stu mac and also a Seymor Duncan schematic. I would appreciate if someone would explain the difference. Thanks, Platefire

I'm assuming your confusion is from the fact that you may have an Asian Inline Switch ?....while most online diagrams are for the double row CRL or Oak Grigsby Switch....and your Ceramic caps are just fine in a Guitar circuit.

We'll I haven't recieved my stu mac switch yet, but I'm thinking it will be standard tele type--as shown in the above attached stu mac schematic. The thing that is confusing to me is----if you look at the diagrams I attached on my previous post---see that the bridge pickup is wired to the front of the switch on one and on the other to the rear of switch?????

I just rewired my first tele using a stewmac kit. 1996 Korean Squier. I just followed the diagram (and yes it is different) and everything came out fine. By the way, I love the golden age pickups. I got both of them.

Thanks! Glad to hear the pickups sound good too--I just got the neck one.
I play on the neck pickup mostly but do use the mid position and bridge quite a bit too. The guy I traded with told me it was a Dimarzio in the bridge position--it sounds pretty good to me---guess there is no way of verifying that?? If it is a stock squire PU I had just as soon change that out too while I'm in there. I'm real happy with the neck, action, white gard and BS finish. Guess I'll wire it up as the stu mac schematic says. Platefire

Well I got the tele completly tore down in prep for shielding, re-wiring and new Neck PU. Got some questions I hope someone can shed some light on??

Q????Can you help me Identify the existing pickups? No sign of a brand name on either pickup. Neck pickup has written on the bottom "Fat T VNN"(5.55K Ohm) and bridge pickup has "Fat T B"(7.62K Ohm). Can you tell from this if this is the stock pickups installed at the China plant or are these non-stock pickups installed after the fact???

Q??? The ground wire from volume to bridge plate connection is from solder connection on vol pot through special route hole up under bridge plate where the wire is not soldered to bridge plate but just held in place by compression of wire between bridge plate and body. Is this a common occurance for attaching ground on teles or just a method on China axes?

Q??? The ground wire from volume to bridge plate connection is from solder connection on vol pot through special route hole up under bridge plate where the wire is not soldered to bridge plate but just held in place by compression of wire between bridge plate and body.

Click to expand...

This is normal on most Teles. I've read that if you properly ground the bridge pickup, you shouldn't need to ground the bridge itself (the metal screws connect the pickup and plate). I've NOT found this to be the case. I always keep the little wire.

Well It's all done, did it today. The noise cancelation with the shielding was a great success. I can now turn the volume up on the amp to wherever I want to go with no noise problems. The new neck Golden Age pickup is sounding real good to my ears but time will tell how is settles out in the long run.

The only probem with my finished job is the mid switch position. It's that out of phase nazel sound! I think it's because that Golden Age has reverse polarity on the leads--to get humbucker operation in the mid position. I'm thinking maybe what I need to do is reverse the leads on the neck pickup to white to ground on the vol pot and black to switch??? Will that correct it??

Also, I believe that the Stew Mac 3 way switch is slightly different from a Fender type 3 way switch (you'll need to switch the left and right sides), which again is different from an Asian import switch. So, that being said, if you order the Stew Mac Tele switch, follow the Stew Mac wiring diagrams, not Fender wiring diagrams.

We'll I been thinking, which may be dangerous! but anyway I never use the mid position sound on a tele very seldom! I mostly use the neck and bridge individually. I'm thinking of just leaving the setup as is and try using the "out of phase" sound a while just to see how I like it. I may find more uses for it
than the standard tele mid position sound. Latter I can decide to switch it back or set it up where I can switch back and forth if I find it's a useful sound. Platefire